The Call

Jordan Turner (Halle Berry) is a skilled 911 operator. She gets a call from Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin) who has an intruder in the house. She tries to hide but she taken when Jordan reconnects after getting disconnected. Michael Foster (Michael Eklund) is a serial killer with a fetish for hair.

This is a great little thriller. It moves along well. The story is logical. Halle Berry may have overacted on a couple of occasions but her location keeps the movie restrained. Overall, this is a great little thriller until the last 20 minutes or so. The ending is pulled right out of a different movie. It tries to ramp up to a slasher porn horror. It doesn't make sense that Jordan would go there. It's too convenient and ill conceived. Before it turned, it's an 8 but 6 is all I have left for it.

I really like the first half, it keeps you involved but second half has unnecessary plot. Ending could have been different.

The first half of the film I'd genuinely give a 10/10, the second half would be more a 6/10.

The first forty five minutes had me utterly gripped and on the edge of my seat, it was exactly what you want from a thriller. The second half becomes a more bog standard thriller, dare I say it, it becomes somewhat silly, the ending is too much.

Berry is terrific, I am such a fan of hers, sadly her character transforms into something a little silly. The villain is rather good, I only wish we got to learn a little of his motivation, sadly they didn't explore it.

It's watchable. 8/10

"The Call" is a tidy little thriller, modeled, in large part, on the movie "Speed." Halle Berry plays the Southern California 911 dispatcher who's in a race against the clock to rescue a teenage girl (Abigail Breslin) locked in the trunk of a serial killer (Michael Eklund).

Director Brad Anderson keeps the action going at a breakneck pace, providing pulse-pounding, edge-of-the-seat suspense that helps us to overlook the stray inconsistency and implausibility that wander into the narrative, particularly towards the end (the movie doesn't entirely escape the Third Act curse common to the genre). There's also an unfortunate tendency towards the sadistic that spoils some of the fun.

The really distinctive feature is that writer Richard D'Ovidio has made Jordan, the dispatcher, a compelling, easily identifiable figure by emphasizing not only her strength and craftiness but her insecurity and self-doubt as she does her best to assist people in making it through sometimes unimaginable crises.

The movie is a bit overwrought at times (again, looking at you, last half hour) and it ultimately succumbs to too many serial-killer clichés, but "The Call" is a whole lot better than many of the more highly publicized, big-budget thrillers of recent times.

I enjoyed this film quite a bit: it kept a good pace of tension which makes for a good thriller. The acting is good (no academy awards), and it did a good job of giving a glimpse into the operations of 911 call centers which is a fresh topic - and it did so without dragging the pace.

The main bad guy becomes ever more creepy as the plot progresses which helps build the tension. The ending takes an interesting twist which, in the moment, doesn't feel quite as out-of-character as others describe - mainly due to a good segue shot that probably took more than a few takes to get right.

The weak spots consist mainly of some CSI style technology leaps that only technology morons would buy into, and a single bit of clumsiness that just feels scripted. Unfortunately the CSI technology leaps are very popular in Hollywood (to my dismay) and the bit of clumsiness is key to the plot progression.

If one or two minor transgressions make you feel like you wasted your money, wait for it to show up on Netflix. If you enjoy a good edge of your seat thriller and can overlook the transgressions, go see it!